The PPNA site of Körtiktepe in the Upper Tigris Basin yielded one of the richest Pre-Pottery Neolithic assemblages in Western Asia. The site also stands among a few key Epipalaeolithic–Neolithic transitional centers that played vital roles in the origin and evolution of Neolithic symbolism in Upper Mesopotamia. The site was occupied from the second half of the 11th millennium BCE, and throughout much of the 10th millennium BCE the sedentary hunter-gatherers at Körtiktepe engaged in a socio-symbolic organization with elaborate funerary practice and extensive manufacture of symbolic artifacts, including figurative plaquettes, engraved stone vessels, incised shaft straighteners with elaborate designs, scepters, and large assemblages of beads, mostly unearthed from c2000 intra-site burials. No other PPN site has yielded such an extensive number of burial remains and grave goods. Here, we present a group of painted bone plaquettes displaying morphological features and some imagery so far not seen at any other Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Western Asia. Assessing the specimens in light of the wider symbolic practices among the first Neolithic societies, we argue that Körtiktepe was an important center of symbolic trend at the dawn of the Neolithic in the Upper Tigris Basin.

底格里斯盆地上游科尔蒂克特佩的PPNA站点是西亚地区最富有的前陶器新石器时代组合之一。该遗址还处在几个重要的上古石器时代到新石器时代的过渡中心之中，这些中心在上美索不达米亚的新石器时代象征主义的起源和演变中起着至关重要的作用。该遗址是在公元前11世纪下半叶占领的，在公元前10世纪的大部分时间里，位于科尔蒂克特佩的久坐的狩猎采集者都参与了一个具有社会象征意义的组织，该组织精心设计了葬礼活动，并广泛制造了象征性的手工艺品，包括比喻的壁画。 ，雕刻的石器，刻有精心设计的竖井矫直机，权杖和大型珠子组合，这些大多是从c2000现场埋葬中发现的。没有其他PPN站点产生如此大量的墓葬和坟墓。在这里，我们展示了一组彩绘的骨板，这些板显示出形态特征和一些图像，这些图像迄今为止在西亚的任何其他陶器前新石器时代遗址中都看不到。根据第一个新石器时代社会中更广泛的象征实践对标本进行评估，我们认为，科尔蒂克特佩河是上底格里斯盆地新石器时代初期重要的象征趋势中心。